Having worked as a waitress now for 7 years, I have often had to deal with difficult guests and had to listen to comments like “Girl, you had better learned something appropriate, then you wouldn’t have to clean the tables.”

Sometimes, however, some of the guests actually ask me what I do apart from carrying beer mugs from table to table. My regular answer then is: “I go to university”. Most of the guests are then satisfied with the answer but some of them ask the crucial question (and believe me, every time that happens, I can’t help but smirk): “And what do you study?” I like to give the answer in a very casual tone: “Well… Shakespeare”

Reactions range from “As if… you can’t study Shakespeare” to “Oh my f***ing God” and sometimes all I get is total speechlessness. Somehow I can then feel a difference in the guests’ attitute towards me. There seems to be a a lot of prestige and also fear attached to the name Shakespeare and I often wonder whether the same thing would happen, had I said “Goethe” or “Schiller”.

Most of my regular guests know what I’m doing by now and seem to enjoy it as much as myself when a new guest comes in and doesn’t know about my unusual field of study. They then tell him (with a hint of pride and also faked boredom in their voices): “Oh, that’s just Katja… She studies Shakespeare!” I actually really like seeing their jaws drop 😉

Ok, I admit it: This blog looks very Shakespeare centred at the first glance and some of my friends will now probably wonder: “Will she force me to read all this stuff?” The answer is: Of course I will!

But you don’t need to worry. This blog will offer much more than Shakespeare and will keep you all informed about my life in London including everything worth blogging about and I hope this will be a lot! I also hope that there will be a lot of comments and conversations on this blog and that nobody will be frightened off by the fact that I chose to blog in English. The simple reason is that I also expect to find new friends in London (sorry to the old friends 😉 ) and that some of the more serious posts about Shakespeare will also be read and commented on by international visitors. However, feel free to comment in German as well! All comments are welcome.